I think Single Cannons might need some Higher initial burst maybe or something that feels the useful
Single cannons are a bit tricky. I use 3 dual cannons and one single cannon in the front slots of my JHSS which has quiet a good turn rate. My all cannon/turret DPS is around 60k in current isa runs. As fun fact the single cannon makes up roughly 1/3 of my 3 dual cannons combined which leads me to believe that it’s has a similar performance as the dual cannons. It’s simply a wider arc with less damage which still, roughly, leads to the same result.
General problem with cannons is the ranged drop in damage under a small targeting arc. If you have to stay close to a group of targets to do efficient damage that arc usually covers less targets than if you had the option to keep the distance. Beams have this issue as well just to a faaaaaaaaaaaaar less notable extend.
If it weren‘t for the damage drop I would not have 2 cannon builds and 7 beam builds on my 9 characters it would be more like the other way around.
Post edited by peterconnorfirst on
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I have said this before, I'll say it again. The chief concern with Fire At Will right now is that everyone uses it. It's the 'best' ability and is therefore the 'go to.'
Lets ask ourselves why this is? Why does everyone FAW everything? Does everyone hate the idea of Cannons?
There is one reason only.. lack of alternatives.
You can go Cannons, who's mechanics are horribly flawed and make them require far more effort for less payoff (in most cases.)
Even if you're a Beam Captain, what's your alternative? Beam Overload? Again.. odd mechanics, most people don't use it. Surgical Strikes? Sure.. that one is not bad but of course there is what.. 3 ships that can even use it? Hardly a mass solution.
Nerfing abilities does not cause diversity.. it never has and it never will. When you take the best ability and reduce it's effectiveness, it has one of two effects. Either it still remains the best ability even after the nerf and everyone sticks with it while setting the forums on fire. Or the nerfed ability moves below the 2nd best option and the 2nd best becomes the new 'Meta' and the problem persists.
The way you create diversity is creating desirable alternatives. You overhaul Cannons to make them competitive. You look at introducing other Beam Skills or improving things like Overload or Surigical Strikes to make them viable alternatives to Fire At Will. When you give people options, they'll try different things. Back when Aux2Bat was the big thing everyone wanted it nerfed. Cryptic instead did the smart thing, and introduced alternatives. They put in the Nukara traits that made people want high Aux, they put in traits and other mechanics that people could use as alternatives and people naturally moved away from A2B. Meanwhile, those who enjoyed it were able to stick with it and didn't have to change if they didn't want to.
Nerfing Fire At Will is a reactionary, short sided solution that lacks imagination and won't fix the problem. You want to really fix the problem? Give people alternatives.. give them other effective abilities and people will naturally migrate away from Fire At Will.
I
The way you create diversity is creating desirable alternatives. You overhaul Cannons to make them competitive. You look at introducing other Beam Skills or improving things like Overload or Surigical Strikes to make them viable alternatives to Fire At Will. When you give people options, they'll try different things. Back when Aux2Bat was the big thing everyone wanted it nerfed. Cryptic instead did the smart thing, and introduced alternatives. They put in the Nukara traits that made people want high Aux, they put in traits and other mechanics that people could use as alternatives and people naturally moved away from A2B. Meanwhile, those who enjoyed it were able to stick with it and didn't have to change if they didn't want to.
I
The way you create diversity is creating desirable alternatives. You overhaul Cannons to make them competitive. You look at introducing other Beam Skills or improving things like Overload or Surigical Strikes to make them viable alternatives to Fire At Will. When you give people options, they'll try different things. Back when Aux2Bat was the big thing everyone wanted it nerfed. Cryptic instead did the smart thing, and introduced alternatives. They put in the Nukara traits that made people want high Aux, they put in traits and other mechanics that people could use as alternatives and people naturally moved away from A2B. Meanwhile, those who enjoyed it were able to stick with it and didn't have to change if they didn't want to.
This in so many way
I find that short sighted. Declaring "nerfs" in principal unfeasible traps you in this weird state when anything that once was in the game can never be modified, other stuff can only made equal or better. This is literally the one-way street of power creep, plus never adjusting or "nerfing" BFAW means forever keeping the weird logic of having an AoE attack doing more single-target damage than regular or dedicated attacks. Where's the logic in this?
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Things need to be fixed, declaring that fixes or correcting nerfs are unwanted because certain people in this thread would probably have to fear for their membership of some DPS channel is egocentric, at least. Those who are saying that things shouldn't be fixed just because they depend on it, should look, to speak with Arturis, beyond the bow of their own starship
Besides, I don't see how this is really different from the Kemocite discussion. I think most people agreed there that you shouldn't build your ship around a broken ability. While FAW may not be 'officially' broken, it seems reasonable to me that some correction would or will be made eventually, since it clearly performs better than other abilities. And that this correction would or should come sooner or later is something everyone could have anticipated.
I have said this before, I'll say it again. The chief concern with Fire At Will right now is that everyone uses it. It's the 'best' ability and is therefore the 'go to.'
Lets ask ourselves why this is? Why does everyone FAW everything? Does everyone hate the idea of Cannons?
There is one reason only.. lack of alternatives.
You can go Cannons, who's mechanics are horribly flawed and make them require far more effort for less payoff (in most cases.)
Even if you're a Beam Captain, what's your alternative? Beam Overload? Again.. odd mechanics, most people don't use it. Surgical Strikes? Sure.. that one is not bad but of course there is what.. 3 ships that can even use it? Hardly a mass solution.
Nerfing abilities does not cause diversity.. it never has and it never will. When you take the best ability and reduce it's effectiveness, it has one of two effects. Either it still remains the best ability even after the nerf and everyone sticks with it while setting the forums on fire. Or the nerfed ability moves below the 2nd best option and the 2nd best becomes the new 'Meta' and the problem persists.
The way you create diversity is creating desirable alternatives. You overhaul Cannons to make them competitive. You look at introducing other Beam Skills or improving things like Overload or Surigical Strikes to make them viable alternatives to Fire At Will. When you give people options, they'll try different things. Back when Aux2Bat was the big thing everyone wanted it nerfed. Cryptic instead did the smart thing, and introduced alternatives. They put in the Nukara traits that made people want high Aux, they put in traits and other mechanics that people could use as alternatives and people naturally moved away from A2B. Meanwhile, those who enjoyed it were able to stick with it and didn't have to change if they didn't want to.
Nerfing Fire At Will is a reactionary, short sided solution that lacks imagination and won't fix the problem. You want to really fix the problem? Give people alternatives.. give them other effective abilities and people will naturally migrate away from Fire At Will.
I have said this before, I'll say it again. The chief concern with Fire At Will right now is that everyone uses it. It's the 'best' ability and is therefore the 'go to.'
Lets ask ourselves why this is? Why does everyone FAW everything? Does everyone hate the idea of Cannons?
There is one reason only.. lack of alternatives.
You can go Cannons, who's mechanics are horribly flawed and make them require far more effort for less payoff (in most cases.)
Even if you're a Beam Captain, what's your alternative? Beam Overload? Again.. odd mechanics, most people don't use it. Surgical Strikes? Sure.. that one is not bad but of course there is what.. 3 ships that can even use it? Hardly a mass solution.
Nerfing abilities does not cause diversity.. it never has and it never will. When you take the best ability and reduce it's effectiveness, it has one of two effects. Either it still remains the best ability even after the nerf and everyone sticks with it while setting the forums on fire. Or the nerfed ability moves below the 2nd best option and the 2nd best becomes the new 'Meta' and the problem persists.
The way you create diversity is creating desirable alternatives. You overhaul Cannons to make them competitive. You look at introducing other Beam Skills or improving things like Overload or Surigical Strikes to make them viable alternatives to Fire At Will. When you give people options, they'll try different things. Back when Aux2Bat was the big thing everyone wanted it nerfed. Cryptic instead did the smart thing, and introduced alternatives. They put in the Nukara traits that made people want high Aux, they put in traits and other mechanics that people could use as alternatives and people naturally moved away from A2B. Meanwhile, those who enjoyed it were able to stick with it and didn't have to change if they didn't want to.
Nerfing Fire At Will is a reactionary, short sided solution that lacks imagination and won't fix the problem. You want to really fix the problem? Give people alternatives.. give them other effective abilities and people will naturally migrate away from Fire At Will.
Just say no to nerfs.
I completely agree. more choices, is the solution. I use both, beams and cannons; I don't want to see my efforts put on my beam builds wasted, but I want an improvement of the cannons skills, and one or more alternatives to the beam skills
And also a real improvement of the sci skills, I'm not a sci captain, but most of the sci skills are just crappy; this is why everybody uses grav well (this skill should be only useable by sci captains)
A couple of reasonable changes could include:
Getting rid of the 5th shot in a volley
Not hitting a secondary target with a particular beam weapon unless a primary target is in the arc
-2 weapon power for each beam shot at a secondary target
In truth, I'd rather see a boost in the other weapons and abilities.
First, they are underpowered given the confined arc that they have. The distance dropoff (a cliff) after 2km is abolutely disgusting. There is no place for that. I don't know where they got the crack that they were smoking when they came up with that idea in the first place. Cannon: Rapid Fire needes a boost as well. Cannon: Scatter Volley is hit or miss, in a more confined arc, much unlike BFAW. And with all the BFAWing going on in battlezones, cannons are too slow to even have a chance. You could fire a cannon volley 2 or 3 seconds before shooting BFAW and the beams will destroy the mines, plasma bombs, web nodes faster than the cannon shots can even get there.
Beam: Overload needs a boost too. When BFAW does what it does only better, there is just no place in the game for it. That needs to change.
Torpedoes. Base damage is just not there, particularly for the basic 6. And the problems with Torpedo: High Yield include:
Spread is an automatic hit, no matter how much the defense, how fancy their maneuvers are, no matter what.
Spread III deals so much more damage that High Yield III that HYIII or HY's in general have as much place in the game as Beam:
Overload does, being none at all.
BFAW is king because it was designed that way, in a way that makes it imperative to use the same old, same old, same tired-TRIBBLE$ old builds to achieve not even optimal, but decent DPS. Who ever decided this was balanced or in fact to make BFAW king of all, to hell with balance needs to quit the game and check into a rehab center for his crack problem.
Weapon diversity is in Grethor and it needs to be rescued.
I agree with @seaofsorrows , though I would also like to point out that BFAW on its own is not as powerful as it might seem: one must not forget the other things going alongside it - KLW, embassy plasma consoles, leech, just to name the few playing the biggest part.
Just from a Star Trek story logic perspective, BFAW was only ever shown, in any way, as something that a large ship with a plethora of beam arrays ever did. You didn't see the Defiant shooting beams all over the place. You didn't even see Voyager doing that.
Never in Trek did we see beam spam like we do in STO, even the scene in Nemesis from which the FAW we know is derived was tame by comparison and for the record, there are instances of Voyager firing at multiple ships at once.
A proper balancing would involve:
1) limiting BFAW to cruisers -- making that their primary DPS ability
2) limiting CSV and CRF to Escorts/Raiders -- making that their primary DPS ability
3) limiting GW and other major damage dealing Sci magic abilities to Science ships -- making that their primary DPS ability
4) that leaves TS and THY as an ability available to all types of ship, allowing a variety of torp builds -- balance Torpedo builds against the other three styles.
That's all well and good but what about people like me who use FAW on our science ships for spreading APB to augment our grav wells?
It occurs to me that originally, BFaW damage output was limited by weapons power drain. Now, with the high-DPS players overcapping their power by insane amounts, that limit is no longer effective. I don't think making each shot drain as if it were a standard non-BFaW shot is the answer, that'd probably be too much, but an adjustment of the 'discount' to power drain might help.
"You Iconians just hung a vacancy sign on your asses and my foot's looking for a room!"
--Red Annorax
"I don't use beams, and they are so good, so I want them less good for the people that use and depend on them, and until then I'll just stomp my feet because ONE ability happens to be good, because nothing in this game should ever be good or desirable ever. We should all just be miserable!"
Take care how you beseech the gods, for they may answer you.
The problem is that Borty Baby has been going waaaaaay overboard with the nerfs lately. Look at what he did to the torpedoes. You go asking for something to be nerfed, expecting just a minor adjustment, and what you're likely to get is BFAW hammered brutally with the nerfbat until all that's left is a greasy spot on the floor.
Take care how you beseech the gods, for they may answer you.
The problem is that Borty Baby has been going waaaaaay overboard with the nerfs lately. Look at what he did to the torpedoes. You go asking for something to be nerfed, expecting just a minor adjustment, and what you're likely to get is BFAW hammered brutally with the nerfbat until all that's left is a greasy spot on the floor.
Yup. And when BFAW is nerfed, something else will become as powerful as it once was, then that will be nerfed. Eventually, by this logic, everything will eventually have to be nerfed until everything is equally useless.
Rest well assured, they will not be nerfing BFAW no matter how much we post on that issue. If I get proven wrong, then it's a good day to be wrong. And I doubt they nerfed those torps and kemo any more than they absolutely had to to finally get rid of the server problems that went along with them. That fix as unpleasant as it is had to happen.
I would actually like to see a boost in the other weapons and abilities instead. Yeah, yeah I know power creep and all that jazz but it's still happening anyway even if cannons, torps, and B:O gets nerfed. So I roll out the welcome mat for build diversity.
I use torpedo spreads for a lot of my AoE these days, and Gravwells, but I agree with the "Don't nerf BFAW" crowd because their argument makes a lot more sense to me.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
It's a double ended fix, normally I'm against nerfs but sometimes it HAS to be done and this is one case.
They should make some minor changes like adding power drain and such like the other guy above me said, they don't need to reduce the damage just make it less effective in certain situations.
At the same time other skills need to be buffed and reworked into more usefulness. AOE is king in this game by design and that needs to be addressed.
At the same time other skills need to be buffed and reworked into more usefulness. AOE is king in this game by design and that needs to be addressed.
This is because instead of fighting smaller numbers of ships closer to our power level, like in the shows, we're expected to take out vast enemy fleets with just 5 of us..
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
Yes, but the game would require a significant overhaul to accomplish that so we may be out of luck in that regard.
My first love has always been escorts since the game first launched but this last year I gave the FAW meta a try and blazed through elite content without any trouble. Now I've switched to escorts to level traits and even with similar high level gear I'm shocked how bad cannons are in the same missions. Two starship traits were made to help address this and I have both but they aren't enough to address the underlying problems with cannon mechanics.
They should add a more visible way to mark a single enemy within a group of enemies so that players would know who to target first and next and so on until that mob was taken out. Then BFAW would not be the only option to take out threatening enemy groups. Then, perhaps, BFAW would be used less often. My beam overload is extremely effective against a single target. Works great. I prefer it over BFAW. But in a scenario like Crystalline Entity, in such a target rich environment, the entity gets targeted and BFAW hammers away on everything.
One of the biggest original problems with BFAW the Devs tried to fix was to ensure that it was never a drawback to use it, becuase pretty much no power did that. (Only BO did for a while longer than BFAW, with its energy drain). They wanted AoE and they also wanted single target DPS. It's not like BFAW is the only power to do that. Cannon Scatter Volley and Torpedo Spread do the same.
So I think the goal of having both is not necessarily impossible, but BFAW and all the energy optimization options together are just too good.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Comments
Single cannons are a bit tricky. I use 3 dual cannons and one single cannon in the front slots of my JHSS which has quiet a good turn rate. My all cannon/turret DPS is around 60k in current isa runs. As fun fact the single cannon makes up roughly 1/3 of my 3 dual cannons combined which leads me to believe that it’s has a similar performance as the dual cannons. It’s simply a wider arc with less damage which still, roughly, leads to the same result.
General problem with cannons is the ranged drop in damage under a small targeting arc. If you have to stay close to a group of targets to do efficient damage that arc usually covers less targets than if you had the option to keep the distance. Beams have this issue as well just to a faaaaaaaaaaaaar less notable extend.
If it weren‘t for the damage drop I would not have 2 cannon builds and 7 beam builds on my 9 characters it would be more like the other way around.
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^^ Hear ye him!
This in so many way
I find that short sighted. Declaring "nerfs" in principal unfeasible traps you in this weird state when anything that once was in the game can never be modified, other stuff can only made equal or better. This is literally the one-way street of power creep, plus never adjusting or "nerfing" BFAW means forever keeping the weird logic of having an AoE attack doing more single-target damage than regular or dedicated attacks. Where's the logic in this?
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Things need to be fixed, declaring that fixes or correcting nerfs are unwanted because certain people in this thread would probably have to fear for their membership of some DPS channel is egocentric, at least. Those who are saying that things shouldn't be fixed just because they depend on it, should look, to speak with Arturis, beyond the bow of their own starship
Besides, I don't see how this is really different from the Kemocite discussion. I think most people agreed there that you shouldn't build your ship around a broken ability. While FAW may not be 'officially' broken, it seems reasonable to me that some correction would or will be made eventually, since it clearly performs better than other abilities. And that this correction would or should come sooner or later is something everyone could have anticipated.
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My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
I completely agree. more choices, is the solution. I use both, beams and cannons; I don't want to see my efforts put on my beam builds wasted, but I want an improvement of the cannons skills, and one or more alternatives to the beam skills
And also a real improvement of the sci skills, I'm not a sci captain, but most of the sci skills are just crappy; this is why everybody uses grav well (this skill should be only useable by sci captains)
Most unexpectedly, this turned into a flame-fest! Closed it goes!. /sigh What flamefestery is this? pwlaughingtrendy
Can we also nerf people who are asking to nerf those who are asking about nerfing?
Agreed but I aint typing all you wrote
Most unexpectedly, this turned into a flame-fest! Closed it goes!. /sigh What flamefestery is this? pwlaughingtrendy
Getting rid of the 5th shot in a volley
Not hitting a secondary target with a particular beam weapon unless a primary target is in the arc
-2 weapon power for each beam shot at a secondary target
In truth, I'd rather see a boost in the other weapons and abilities.
First, they are underpowered given the confined arc that they have. The distance dropoff (a cliff) after 2km is abolutely disgusting. There is no place for that. I don't know where they got the crack that they were smoking when they came up with that idea in the first place. Cannon: Rapid Fire needes a boost as well. Cannon: Scatter Volley is hit or miss, in a more confined arc, much unlike BFAW. And with all the BFAWing going on in battlezones, cannons are too slow to even have a chance. You could fire a cannon volley 2 or 3 seconds before shooting BFAW and the beams will destroy the mines, plasma bombs, web nodes faster than the cannon shots can even get there.
Beam: Overload needs a boost too. When BFAW does what it does only better, there is just no place in the game for it. That needs to change.
Torpedoes. Base damage is just not there, particularly for the basic 6. And the problems with Torpedo: High Yield include:
Spread is an automatic hit, no matter how much the defense, how fancy their maneuvers are, no matter what.
Spread III deals so much more damage that High Yield III that HYIII or HY's in general have as much place in the game as Beam:
Overload does, being none at all.
BFAW is king because it was designed that way, in a way that makes it imperative to use the same old, same old, same tired-TRIBBLE$ old builds to achieve not even optimal, but decent DPS. Who ever decided this was balanced or in fact to make BFAW king of all, to hell with balance needs to quit the game and check into a rehab center for his crack problem.
Weapon diversity is in Grethor and it needs to be rescued.
Never in Trek did we see beam spam like we do in STO, even the scene in Nemesis from which the FAW we know is derived was tame by comparison and for the record, there are instances of Voyager firing at multiple ships at once.
That's all well and good but what about people like me who use FAW on our science ships for spreading APB to augment our grav wells?
--Red Annorax
"I don't use beams, and they are so good, so I want them less good for the people that use and depend on them, and until then I'll just stomp my feet because ONE ability happens to be good, because nothing in this game should ever be good or desirable ever. We should all just be miserable!"
The problem is that Borty Baby has been going waaaaaay overboard with the nerfs lately. Look at what he did to the torpedoes. You go asking for something to be nerfed, expecting just a minor adjustment, and what you're likely to get is BFAW hammered brutally with the nerfbat until all that's left is a greasy spot on the floor.
Yup. And when BFAW is nerfed, something else will become as powerful as it once was, then that will be nerfed. Eventually, by this logic, everything will eventually have to be nerfed until everything is equally useless.
But nahhh, salty entitled people will be salty.
I would actually like to see a boost in the other weapons and abilities instead. Yeah, yeah I know power creep and all that jazz but it's still happening anyway even if cannons, torps, and B:O gets nerfed. So I roll out the welcome mat for build diversity.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
They should make some minor changes like adding power drain and such like the other guy above me said, they don't need to reduce the damage just make it less effective in certain situations.
At the same time other skills need to be buffed and reworked into more usefulness. AOE is king in this game by design and that needs to be addressed.
This is because instead of fighting smaller numbers of ships closer to our power level, like in the shows, we're expected to take out vast enemy fleets with just 5 of us..
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
My first love has always been escorts since the game first launched but this last year I gave the FAW meta a try and blazed through elite content without any trouble. Now I've switched to escorts to level traits and even with similar high level gear I'm shocked how bad cannons are in the same missions. Two starship traits were made to help address this and I have both but they aren't enough to address the underlying problems with cannon mechanics.
the question no one never ask is 'You wanna nerf yours or of the others?'
So I think the goal of having both is not necessarily impossible, but BFAW and all the energy optimization options together are just too good.